Brewery Tour: Moonshrimp Brewing (Portland, Oregon)

Gluten Free Brewery Tours

Get Behind-The-Scenes!

A couple of weekends ago, I embarked on a road trip to visit and tour 3 gluten free breweries in the Pacific Northwest. I know that the readers of this blog are scattered all over the world (not just the U.S.!) and many of you may not have the ability to visit these brewhouses in person. So I’m bringing the brewery tour to you! These were my stops, in order:

Moonshrimp Brewing in Portland, Oregon

Ghostfish Brewing in Seattle, Washington

Ground Breaker Brewing in Portland, Oregon

Moonshrimp Brewing fermenters

If you’re wondering why I went to Portland twice, it’s because each one of these stops were carefully coordinated with the brewery owners and brewmasters. This was no typical brew tour. We wanted Best Gluten Free Beers readers to get a full behind-the-scenes look at how gluten free beer is made, so we arranged the tours on days when the breweries were actually brewing their beer!

Not only will readers get to see a full tour of the brewhouse facilities (led by the brewmaster of each brewery!), but they will also get to watch the entire brew process, from start to finish. Two of these breweries even have 100% gluten free taprooms, which will also be included in the tour.

Before I set off on this road trip I sent an email out to all of my readers, asking you to send me any questions you had for the brewmasters or owners of these breweries. I got a lot of responses with a lot of questions, and I asked every single one of them during my tours. So if you were one of those readers, stay tuned for the answers to your questions when I release the full tours!

Hugging fermenters…a typical day at Moonshrimp Brewing!

My First Stop: Moonshrimp Brewing

Portland, Oregon

I woke up bright and early in Bend (Oregon) Saturday morning to begin the 3 hours drive up to Portland to meet Dan, owner and brewmaster of Moonshrimp Brewing. I wanted to be there in time to catch the start of the brew, which was slated for about 11am. This particular day was an exciting one for Moonshrimp.

That day’s brew just happen to be a collaboration between Moonshrimp Brewing and Brewed By Gnomes. Brewed By Gnomes is operated by a nomadic brewer named Shay Hosseinion. Shay is Portland-based but because his brewery hasn’t found a home yet, he has been teaming up with other craft breweries to brew collaborative beers. His passion is for brewing ancient organic ales with heavy herbal qualities.

Shay of Brewed By Gnomes (left) and Dan of Moonshrimp Brewing (right)

The ale that Dan and Shay brewed during my visit was a session saison brewed with Organic flowers, honeysuckle and nasturtium. Those of you who are interested in gluten free home brewing are going to LOVE this tour because Moonshrimp Brewing is a very small operation, and Dan has gotten very creative with his space and equipment. (see the video!)

Full Brewery Tours Coming Soon!

This road trip had me visiting 3 breweries in 4 days, and let me tell you, these were very long filming days. I wanted to make sure I captured every step of the process, so I spent the entire day with each brewer and their team. (For example, I was at Ghostfish filming for over 12 hours!) So what I have now is an entire day of footage for each brewery. Many hours of brew magic that now needs to be processed and edited down to a short film for each brewery.

I explain this to you so you may understand why it will take me awhile to complete the editing process. I will do my best to get them finished up as soon as possible, but in the meantime, I am releasing short sneak-peak videos to hold you over. :)

The good news is I’m ready to share the first teaser video! I decided to go in the order of my tour, so toady you’ll be getting a peak inside of Moonshrimp Brewing in Portland. This was a very unique brewery. It is completely different than the two to follow (Ghostfish and Ground Breaker) simply because it is such a tiny operation. They don’t have a brew pub, and their brewery is generally not open to the public. Moonshrimp also has a unique brewing style…in fact, all 3 of the breweries I toured brewed gluten free beer very differently.

I hope you enjoy this little sneak-peak! Be sure to get on my email list so that I can let you know when the full tour is ready for viewing. Cheers!